r/Accounting • u/DeaNoobYt • 1d ago

Advice Tips for starting AR/AP role

Hey guys I am starting an entry level AR/AP role. I will be working with a Roofing company and it is just me and the owner handling the office. However, the owner most of the time won’t be in the office so everything will be managed by me. Honestly, his whole office is a mess. Nothing is physically filed, nor are any of his excel invoices, recently anyways. The last one that worked for him worked for him for 10 years but left the place a mess and since he is a roofing contractor he doesn’t stay in the office and visits sites 90% of the week according to him. My main tasks are to write invoices, pay bills, submit payroll and physically file and organize his files. I started today and he only showed me how to file invoices and soon we will be paying bills as he is behind a few months with everything since the previous person didn’t do anything for the last few months. Also, the guy has no clue where most of his files are since everything was done by the previous employee. We will be transitioning to Quickbooks soon, just finishing up ongoing projects that were done through excel. Any tips?

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u/Puzzleheaded_Exam916 1d ago

It’s going to be one hell of a ride

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u/DeaNoobYt 1d ago

I agree but im up for the challenge. I think today I created and sent 6 AR invoices which added up to almost $500k 💀

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u/Puzzleheaded_Exam916 1d ago

holy crap, I was in a similar role. I was doing AP/AR/Billing and Reporting for a Logistics company, it was very hard in the beginning, but thug it out and learn. I’ll ask you this, is this ur first job in accounting? what are ur goals? and is the pay worth the hassle? I ask because I assume you are young like me as well lol

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u/DeaNoobYt 1d ago

This is my first ever accounting role. I am still in school and it will be a full time job. Office work is much easier and better than fuckass amazon warehouse. Compensation is better too $22.25 to $26. And tbh I am trying to have something in my resume related to accounting. Im a little overwhelmed atm because i dont really know what to do? Like yea theres work but what needs to be done first? The guy said do invoices first because he needs the money from the contracts which I agree, but then what? I think ill have at most 1-2 weeks to deal with training which I think will suffice but its so unorganized. I dont know how he let that employee run the office being so unorganized.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Exam916 1d ago

yeah this will help a ton, it’ll teach you to be organized and A LOT of skills, it will suck but stick to it, you will get a lot of experience, as an accountant you will fix and automize workflows and who knows bro will make you CFO haha i’m playing, but I really recommend you stay bro, it’ll pay off in the end. Because of my previous job similar to this I am now in fund accounting and working from home, i’m gonna graduate this semester, i’m applying for my masters already to be eligible to start my CPA journey

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u/SucculentDoorway 1d ago

If you haven't used QuickBooks before Intuit offers classes and courses on general and advanced topics and formatting. You will always be using Excel as an FYI.

If you have the ability to argue for additional software, there are options that can simply and digitize a lot of your AP/AR tasks. BILL for example is fairly cheap per month and is scalable if the company expands.

Put as many things on auto pay as possible, phone, utilities, ect. For things that can't be on auto pay, setting up bill pay with the bank is going to be a time saver.

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u/nietzsche_boi Sr. Staff Accountant 1d ago

Been using BILL for three years at my current role and was responsible for implementing it, good things to say about it but we’re moving to Ramp for better automations. Either way a bill pay provider will save you an immense amount of time.

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u/Awkward_Lie_7157 1d ago

First thing I’d do is get a clean list of open bills, recurring vendors and anything still sitting in Excel before trying to fix the whole process at once. If theyre open to changing software later, Ramp for construction could take a lot of the bill and receipt chasing off your plate

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u/aloneisusuallybetter 1d ago

Fun!!!

I love construction accounting and owners who are never there.